Open access content on Appropedia

CD3WD (CD for the 3rd World), and WikiGreen (the first major green wiki) have done an enormous amount of work getting permission for books and other great resources in sustainability and development, and getting it online. All up there are thousands of pages on specific agricultural subjects, appropriate technologies for building, and more.

Much of that content has ended up on Appropedia. It’s valuable content, and we are (we believe) allowed to share it. But we’ve had a dilemma: it’s not under an open license, as far as we know. It’s open access, but can’t be reused or modified, and certainly there hasn’t been permission given to use commercially. That clashes with our default license.

So, do we remove it? That would be a great loss to the internet community when they search for answers on these important subjects. This is something I’ve agonized over. So instead, we are now placing notices on these pages, noting that these are exceptions to Appropedia’s regular license. So far, all the CD3WD pages that we have, have had the notices placed on them. Next, we need to list the good material made available by the work of Eric and Roy.

If you’re aware of any work which should not be displayed (i.e. the rights-owners do not give permission for it to be made available as open access), please let us know, and we will take action to fix things up (gain permission or remove it).